Carter E. Strang

Carter Strang has handled a broad range of matters in both state and federal court with a primary focus on environmental, mass tort, and product liability litigation.

Before attending law school, Carter earned both the Jennings Scholar and Taft Fellow teaching awards in his career as a high school teacher and coach. The first in his family to practice law, he became interested in a legal career as a result of exposure to local attorneys – including former Congressman Louis Stokes – who were guest speakers in his classes.

Carter has found his teaching and coaching provided excellent leadership training, which he has put to use both at the firm as a trial attorney and in the community.

“My toughest audience was not a jury. It was a class of high school seniors during their last month of school. Keeping them interested and engaged was a real challenge.”

It is indeed gratifying, he reports, when those former students – many of whom are now local attorneys – tell him the positive impact he had on their lives.

Carter is the only person to have served as president of both the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association and the Federal Bar Association Northern District of Ohio Chapter. It is through those bar associations and as a Tucker Ellis partner that he creates and fosters innovative, award-winning educational, environmental, and diversity programs and initiatives that serve as models nationwide.

During his tenure (2012-2013) as president of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association (CMBA), Carter created the Stokes Scholars Program, a pipeline diversity program that provides paid summer legal internships for college students. Fulfilling its motto, “Changing Lives One Student At A Time,” it won the 2014 Ohio State Bar Foundation Outstanding Program Award, the 2013 Expys Best New Internship Award, and the 2013 NABE LexisNexis Community & Educational Outreach Award.

Carter also co-authored the curriculum for the CMBA award-winning 3Rs program (law-based classroom instruction and counseling in Cleveland public schools), and he initiated the Citizens Legal Academy, providing adults information about “hot button” legal topics.

Carter founded the CMBA Green Initiative, which certifies local law firms for environmentally responsible practices, such as recycling and responsible energy and paper use. Over 50 firms are now “CMBA Green Certified,” including Tucker Ellis. The firm won the CMBA’s inaugural Green Innovation Award. Carter was instrumental in the creation of the firm’s Green Initiative Committee and has been a member since its inception.

Carter initiated and administers the Tucker Ellis Pipeline Diversity Program, which includes partnerships with urban public schools in all of the firm’s offices. As a result of this program and the firm’s overall diversity and inclusion efforts, Tucker Ellis earned the inaugural CMBA Trailblazer Award in 2012, and the Los Angeles office program received the 2010 Pillar Partnership Spotlight Award.

Well known in the Northeast Ohio community, Carter has been the subject of many feature articles, including “Diversity and Pride,” Shaker Life Magazine (February-March 2013); “Bar President Carter Strang Says Percentage of Minorities in Law ‘Unacceptable,’” The Plain Dealer (2012); and “The Interview: Carter E. Strang, President, Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association,” Crain’s Cleveland Business (2012). Other features include “Who to Watch: Law,” Crain’s Cleveland Business (2012); “What One Law Firm and One Lawyer Have Done for Our City’s Youngsters,” Law Notes, a publication of Cleveland-Marshall Law Alumni Association (2009); and “Teacher Turned Lawyer,” Kent State Magazine (2009). He has been frequently quoted in The National Law Journal and other publications on a variety of topics.

Carter, a two-sport college athlete, has participated in Cleveland’s Bike to Work Day and the MS 150 “Pedal to the Point” Multiple Sclerosis fundraiser. As a member of Cleveland’s Team Benjamin Triathlon Team, he helped raise money to benefit United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Cleveland. Carter and his wife Deedra (Siegel) Strang, a speech pathologist with the Shaker Heights Public Schools, are the parents of five sons.

Representative Cases

Obtained summary judgment in products liability case against manufacturer of a miter saw

Obtained a defense verdict in CERCLA trial and drafted successful appellee’s brief to the United States 6th Circuit, which rejected appellant’s “passive migration” claims

Obtained a judgment in a CERCLA trial against prior owner of client’s property, where “innocent landowner” and pre-existing contribution protection were at issue

Obtained a settlement in a RCRA “Citizen Suit” injunctive action on behalf of a bank arising from contamination of its property from abandoned UST tanks and product lines

Obtained a judgment against a major international oil company for contamination of a service station’s property during a UST gasoline delivery, and sanctions against its counsel for discovery abuses

Obtained a defense verdict for coffee maker manufacturers after trial where plaintiff asserted claim alleging the maker caused a fire

Obtained an injunction against a major international supermarket chain on behalf of a local shopping center owner where the chain closed its store, ceasing payment of its percentage rents

Obtained a “de minimis” CERCLA settlement on behalf of local car dealers in multimillion-dollar claim against them arising from used oil contamination and successfully asserted claims against the clients’ carriers for payment of settlement proceeds

Obtained summary judgment on behalf of a major oil company in a benzene exposure claim